Child Care for Work at Home Parents

Posted by admin on Jul 27th, 2016 in Uncategorized | Comments Off on How To Safely Incorporate Water Play Into Your Child Care Center This Summer

One of the best parts of summer, from the perspective of a child, is getting to play in the water on a hot summer day. Young children love playing in the water; have you ever watched how a young child can be entertained with the sink faucet for minutes on end? Even if you don’t have access to a pool to take the children at your child care center to, you can still incorporate water play and water days into your child care center’s weekly summer schedule.

Adding Water Days To Your Schedule

It can be helpful to have specific set water days for each classroom at your child care center. For example, the toddler rooms could have their water days on Wednesday, the three to four-year-old rooms could have their water day on Thursdays, and the 5-year-old rooms could have their water day on Fridays. Providing set days for your water days will allow your staff time to set up and prepare age-appropriate activities for each group, and will help you ensure that your staff can safely supervise all children participating in water activities.

Clothing For Water Days

If you decide to have water days at your center, be sure to communicate this to your parents. Ask that each parent brings appropriate water clothing for their child. If you are doing a water day in your playground, make sure that you let the parents know that their child will need specific shoes that they can get wet for water day. Additionally, ask each parent to send sunscreen for water day. Make sure they bring a towel as well.

When water day arrives, try to have an extra staff member on hand to assist each room with getting ready for and supervising water day. This can be a rotating summer staff member who just covers water days throughout your building. On water day, have the kids change into their swimsuits or swimwear and put sunscreen on each child before you go outside. Make sure that you bring towels with you outside as well.

Water Day Activities

There are many water day activities that you can incorporate that do not involve a swimming pool. To start with, you can move your sensory tables outside and fill them with water and toys that the children can play with. You can provide them with different items to engage in each week, such as funnels and measuring cups one week, and sponges the next week. The objective is to let them play with the water and get messy with it in a way that they can’t do inside the classroom.

Next, you can set up buckets of water and provide your students with water guns. You can provide them with targets that they can shoot with the water guns. If you allow students to shoot water at each other, make sure that you stress that they should only spray water on other student’s bodies and not their eyes.

Another great option that is always popular is sprinklers. You can set up different types of sprinklers or vary the location each week so that your students have a variety of different ways to engage with the sprinklers.

Finally, you can set up a kiddie slide with water going down it so that students can go down their own mini water slide.

Water days can be a great way to break up the summer at your daycare. If you decide to add water days to your schedule, make sure that you let the parents know and that you clearly communicate water day expectations to the children under your care. Make sure that you train your staff on how to safely supervise water days, and provide extra staff if necessary to facilitate this fun summer activity.

Posted by admin on Mar 28th, 2016 in Uncategorized | Comments Off on 3 Questions To Ask When Choosing The Right Daycare For Your New Baby

If you know that you will be returning to work after your baby is born, choosing the right facility for your young baby can be terrifying. It is important to remember that research has established that about one out of every six babies under the age of a year attend daycare centers, while many others have informal, family or home-based child care arrangements. Given that daycare workers are only allowed to care for a few babies at one time, there are frequently waiting lists for popular facilities. Therefore, it will be a good idea to ask the following questions when determining where your infant will be cared for when you need to return to work, so that your baby can go on the waiting list for the right daycare center, if necessary.

#1-What Are The Guidelines For The Sleeping Area?

One common concern for many new parents is the ability to personalize the sleeping area of their baby. For instance, you have probably picked out the bedding and mobile that your new baby will use at home. However, although daycare centers typically have some mobiles and they will obviously have blankets, many parents bring in duplicates of the items they have at home.

By doing so, there is a continuity that babies often benefit from as they mature. In addition, you can also be sure that your child is the only one who has ever used the sheets, blankets and other items that you have provided.

#2-How Are Items Cleaned?

The good news is that there are standards in place in each state that govern how toys, floors and other items commonly used in daycare centers can be cleaned. One common option is to use diluted bleach to disinfect items that have been washed in hot, soapy water. However, there are rarely any guidelines for the use of specific laundry soap or fabric softener on items like washable blocks, stuffed animals and cloth books.

If your pediatrician advises the use of a hypo-allergenic laundry soap or fabric softener, you may want to ask each daycare facility what type of laundry cleaners they use. If it is not the type of product you plan to use, it will be helpful to ask if they could use the products you provide for any items you expect your child to come into contact with. This will be especially useful if you do not provide and wash your baby’s bedding.

#3-How Much Communication Do Parents Get?

It only makes sense that you will probably be given daily sheets to let you know when and how much your child has eaten during the day, when they slept and how many diaper changes they received. In addition to that information, many new parents benefit from getting more specific input from their baby’s caregivers.

For instance, if your child will be on both formula and breast milk, you may want to know the type of bottle consumed at each feeding. As your baby gets older and starts to teethe, the symptoms could show up in daycare before you notice them at home. Although colic rarely occurs during the day, some children have that fussy time at daycare. Ideally, the daily sheets should have observations about any unusual mood or behavioral changes.

In conclusion, choosing the right child care facility for your baby can impact both the baby and you in a variety of ways. As a result, it is important to ask the above questions when you are considering the different daycare centers in your area. Contact a company like Youthland Academy to get started.

Posted by admin on Mar 22nd, 2016 in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Tips To Help Your Child Prepare For The First Day Of Preschool

Enrolling your child in preschool is a major life moment for both you and your child. Often, preschool will be the first time that a child will be regularly separated from the parent for extended periods of time, and this can cause tremendous stress for your child. To help your child better cope with the stresses of starting preschool, you should use these two tips to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Take A Tour Of The Preschool

One of the more frightening aspects of starting preschool can be the unfamiliar surroundings. Many children are easily upset by sudden changes and new environments. As a result, you may want to tour the preschool with your child so that they can become familiar with the facility while still enjoying the comfort of having you nearby. To help with this, many preschools offer open house days so that prospective students and parents can tour the school and meet with the teachers. While this may seem like a time consuming or unnecessary step, it can be the difference between your child confidently walking into the preschool versus throwing a tantrum when you drop them off.

Start Preparing The Night Before

The morning of your child’s first day of preschool can be a hectic experience. In addition to trying to get your child to school on time, you may also need to get the work, and this can create serious time constraints. To alleviate this problem, you should make sure to start preparing your child for preschool the night before. By laying out your child’s clothes and packing their backpack before you go to bed, you will be able to spend more time in the morning helping your child mentally prepare for the day while staying on schedule. When using this approach, make sure that you allow your child to do much of the actual packing and allow them to have a say in their clothing, these two simple tasks can help instill more of a sense of control over the situation for your child.

The day that your child starts preschool can be a very emotionally draining and stressful experience. However, if you understand the benefits of taking these two simple steps, you may find that your child’s adjustment to school is far easier than you originally anticipated. In addition to helping manage your stress, this can also help your child feel comfortable and confident in school, which may help instill a love of academics. Visit a website, such as http://www.kidscountry.net, for more information.

Posted by admin on Mar 8th, 2016 in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Refuting Two Myths About Preschool

The quality of education that your child receives can be important in determining the college and career opportunities that will be readily accessible. Sadly, it is a common mistake for some new parents to overlook the importance of early childhood education. Often, this can be attributed to believing some common misconceptions about this type of education. By having the following notions about early childhood education refuted, you will find you are better prepared to help your child achieve academic success.

Myth: Early Childhood Education Is Simply Another Term For Daycare

There are many people that assume preschools and daycares are all the same. However, it should be noted that there can be important differences between these two types of facilities. For example, daycares often have a secondary focus on education while preschools often place a much greater emphasis on scholastics. While day care can be a fine choice for extremely young children, you may want to consider switching your child to a preschool as they start approaching the age to enter kindergarten. By enrolling your child in a preschool program, you can help them to make an easier transition to attending regular school.

Myth: There Are No Tools To Help Low-Income Families With Preschool Expenses

Unfortunately, preschool can be a rather expensive investment to make in your child’s future. As a result, there are some people that may assume they can not afford to use these services. However, you should be aware of the fact that there are many programs designed to help parents that can not afford these fees. For example, preschool is a tax deductible expense for parents with children that are too young to enter public schools, and this end of the year deduction can help you to offset the tuition for these programs. Also, there are some schools that can provide financial assistance to qualifying parents, and while you may not want to submit proof of your income to these programs, it can be a minor sacrifice for enabling your child to attend these programs.

Preschool is an important part of your child’s education, but it is an unfortunate fact that many parents will overlook this part of their child’s schooling. Often, this can be traced to the belief in some routine misconceptions about these programs. By making sure that you understand that preschool offers your child important academic benefits as well as the fact that there are financial tools to help offset the tuition expenses for these programs, you will be better able to ensure your child receives the best education possible. Contact a local academy, such as McLean Children’s Academy, for further assistance.

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About Me

I have been very fortunate to be able to stay home with my kids for the past five years. I work from home so I didn't have to worry too much about finding a babysitter to watch them while I went to work. As the kids got older, they began to get into more trouble when my back was turned. Believe it or not, they were much easier to take care of when they needed fed and changed every couple of hours. My blog is all about getting child care for your kids even when you work from home. Maybe my experience will help you improve yours.